Option to go back to old leveling

Hello everyone.

I've been leveling some alts recently, for the first time since in a long time as I was previously more of a 'stick to one character and make him/her good' kind of person. So anyway, I decided to go and level a few alts to learn new classes. I couldn't help feeling disappointed though in how fast and easy it all was. It seems to me you can very easily out level zones if you do even half of the quests within them, even without heirlooms, and even more so if you just do one dungeon. (The amount of exp that you can get in dungeons is staggering) Almost everyone nowadays is in heirlooms and so that essentially makes doing dungeons incredibly easy and therefore boring, because let's be honest dungeons aren't hard at low levels anyway. The whole rhythm of leveling gets thrown off. Now I understand that most people leveling characters today already have a main, have probably gotten tired of leveling and just want to get to end game with a new character. But is it too much to ask for all of these options that make leveling faster to be just that? An option. Right now, it isn't really. I don't have the choice to decide whether or not everyone in my group has heirlooms. I don't have the choice to level without the massive decrease in the required experience per expansion.

What I'd untimely like, that I understand is very unlikely, is the following: Some sort of system, perhaps one giant phase until you hit 90/the next top level, that allows you to level with the following: The opportunity to level through zones and be able to experience the whole zone at the appropriate level and difficulty without having to go and stop EXP, because that's not fun. Basically, to experience leveling as it was intended, because right now I feel like leveling is broken. Sure it's good for alts, but I feel sorry for everyone that joins the game nowadays and won't have the opportunity to experience what we experienced when we started playing. I'd imagine the system would work fairly simply. You'd select an option before you created your character, something like 'Do you wish to play your character in Realistic/Original/Extended Leveling/ mode?' And then you play the game normally, but you're in a phase where you can level with others that have chosen that option. No doubt there are massive design flaws there, I'm not a game designer. It's just an idea.

So what are your thoughts? Not really looking for input on my suggested system, just in general.

You can shut off getting experience if you want. There is an NPC to do that for you. Costs a bit of gold and he can also undo it. So perhaps just level up to a certain point - and then finish all the quests in the zone - then reactivate etc etc. But I wouldn't want an option that you suggest. Mainly cause I want everything they have on resources go to other stuff that is (to me) more important. Not that your suggestion is wrong. I am sure some people will want what you want. I just don't want it not if it means Blizzard trading this vs another for me more important implementation.

You can shut off getting experience if you want. There is an NPC to do that for you. Costs a bit of gold and he can also undo it. So perhaps just level up to a certain point - and then finish all the quests in the zone - then reactivate etc etc. But I wouldn't want an option that you suggest. Mainly cause I want everything they have on resources go to other stuff that is (to me) more important. Not that your suggestion is wrong. I am sure some people will want what you want. I just don't want it not if it means Blizzard trading this vs another for me more important implementation.

I actually mentioned turning off experience in the post. I don't really think that's an acceptable or fun option if to experience content in the way I suggest then you need to go and turn exp off all the time. It also doesn't really address all the issues I mentioned.

Is leveling harder than in classic now? Back then I simply killed those weak satryr and highborn elves in azshara for like over 6 levels... Those mobs were so weak compared to most others it was such a joke to level up there. And they dropped tons of felcloth and 16bags. I always hoped blizzard would make leveling harder.

I suppose there are too few people who want that to warrant the effort to put your idea into the game. I can honestly say that on my 11th alt, I am still a bit torn. And as fast as the 1-80 process goes, so tiring is the MoP levelling (haven't levelled 80-85 in MoP yet, only know the Cata speed, hopefully that is faster now as well)

Grinding mobs for whole levels because there wasn't enough quests/xp rewards ?
Atleast that's what I had to do. Yay, Desolace centaur grinding

Not a grind, but not how it is nowadays either. It would still be Cata quests, but without all of these added bonuses. Which reminds me, Guilds are another one that takes away, in my opinion, from leveling. (And no, that's a horrible idea if someone suggests that you don't join a guild then)

I'm on the fence with this. On one hand I like the idea of taking my time and having to experience the entire zone, but also having leveled some 15 or so characters to the level cap at various points means that I've seen it all too many times to want to see it more.

I must be missing something. Zones don't kick you out and quest givers don't stop giving quests when you hit a certain level. If you want to experience an entire zone without turning off xp, do so. If you want to experience the zone at a specific level, do that instead. These aren't dilemmas, they aren't troublesome, they don't need complaining. If you want to play an entirely different game, that's your choice also. Just stop trying to make one game into another.

I must be missing something. Zones don't kick you out and quest givers don't stop giving quests when you hit a certain level. If you want to experience an entire zone without turning off xp, do so. If you want to experience the zone at a specific level, do that instead. These aren't dilemmas, they aren't troublesome, they don't need complaining. If you want to play an entirely different game, that's your choice also. Just stop trying to make one game into another.

It doesn't feel very good to be completing grey quests and artificially stopping your progression isn't good either. Traditionally you near the end of the zones quests when you are near the level of the next zone. All I suggest is that there could be an option. There is no more flow to the zones, which I imagine must annoy the developers that worked hard re-doing the world.

The problem with this is that there are broadly speaking two fields of players:
Hardcore, and Casual.
Now; which field you're in pretty much depends on the topic at hand.

Anyway: Levelling is a tedious experience. Yes; I can understand that, from your perspective, levelling a new alt is fun because you haven't done it to death, but for someone who wants to play lots of different characters, levelling a new one is absolutely horrible. It is content we've all seen before, nothing is really new, and what most of them really want is: Get some experience with new skills, and move on.

With WoW offering the chance to have 11 characters per server, most of us have levelled at least a few characters. Most of us even don't have slots to spare. So it's quite sensible that Blizzard would try to make levelling somewhat less tedious.
Some people enjoy completing quest hubs before hitting 'grey,' some people prefer to twink up, some people prefer it to take longer... And for that, there's the option to turn off XP. It's not perfect, but at least it's something.
You can't please everyone, you see, and from a community perspective, it's far better to make levelling quick and easy. Especially now that we've got 90 character levels to cross. For the ones who do not like that (the vast, VAST minority), there are (imperfect) ways to still not go along with this. To implement different modes for different players... Well; that's only possible if you run those different modes on different servers. And the servers that do not offer fast and easy levelling will not be very populated, which means your gaming experience will be really poor. People will actually unsubscribe because of it, and Blizzard would lose two-fold: Subscription and server upkeep costs.

I'm on the fence with this. On one hand I like the idea of taking my time and having to experience the entire zone, but also having leveled some 15 or so characters to the level cap at various points means that I've seen it all too many times to want to see it more.

Exactly. 7 90's, 1 88, 3 85's, so all 11 classes at between 90 and 85. Had an 3 levels capped Pallies in BC, deleted one because of server character limit, then had 2 level capped Pallies in Wrath, deleted one again because of server limit.

I've seen the leveling content once or twice, so meh about slowing it all down again.

I do Loremaster on my main so that I make sure to see everything at least the once, and then I simply go for efficiency on alts. In fact, lately I don't even work on one of the non-capped alts until the DMF week for the extra 10% xp/rep buff.

It doesn't feel very good to be completing grey quests and artificially stopping your progression isn't good either. Traditionally you near the end of the zones quests when you are near the level of the next zone. All I suggest is that there could be an option. There is no more flow to the zones, which I imagine must annoy the developers that worked hard re-doing the world.

If yoiu don't do dungeons then you should stay in the green mostly. If you really want to do certain zones then I think you should distribute them among several characters.

You can't please everyone, you see, and from a community perspective, it's far better to make levelling quick and easy. Especially now that we've got 90 character levels to cross. For the ones who do not like that (the vast, VAST minority), there are (imperfect) ways to still not go along with this. To implement different modes for different players... Well; that's only possible if you run those different modes on different servers. And the servers that do not offer fast and easy levelling will not be very populated, which means your gaming experience will be really poor. People will actually unsubscribe because of it, and Blizzard would lose two-fold: Subscription and server upkeep costs.

I think the actual game for the people who are never satisfied is the complaining. "I realize you gave me what I wanted, now take it back and do it differently!" No one has stated any sort of reason either continuing in a zone until it is complete or turning off xp at specific intervals would be unacceptable, beyond "I don't want to".

I suppose there are too few people who want that to warrant the effort to put your idea into the game. I can honestly say that on my 11th alt, I am still a bit torn. And as fast as the 1-80 process goes, so tiring is the MoP levelling (haven't levelled 80-85 in MoP yet, only know the Cata speed, hopefully that is faster now as well)

The fact that you have 11 alts speaks volumes about how unbelievably easy leveling is (and always has been) in this game.

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"If you are not capable of cruelty, you are absolutely a victim to anyone who is" - J. Peterson

Some seem to be forgetting that what I'm asking for is choice. Currently, the speedy way is the only way, unless you go out of your way to make it slow, which isn't fun. Again, I'm just asking for the choice.

Don't forget, you are probably the minority in wanted questing to last longer/harder. Blizz made these changes because as a business model, the questing experience was where they lost a lot of new players.

Vanilla was epic. MMO's were new, and you had to finish every quest in every zone and still grind mobs to get to 60. But the goal was 60, not 90. Ive leveled at least 13 toons to level cap last expac. I have 7 90's now and still working through. The most frustrating levels are still probably 47-58. I wouldnt mind the grind if 60 was still the end, but going through the purgatory levels, to realize Im 2/3 done (or less than half if you consider the amount of time to go from 85-90).

As cool as it would be to get to finish zones, realistically, that is what loremaster is for. Go do it at your pace to see the content regardless of it being "current" to your class.

Leveling is fast and that is the way it should be. The whole point of the game is to get to 90 and start doing 90 stuff. It's not about taking your time to level. I imagine that when the new expac comes out it will be even slightly faster to level as you'll have farther to go to reach max level.

And as far as choice, you do have the choice to turn off xp. You just don't like that choice.